The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1887-12-01
THE GOSPEL OF HEALTH.
Divine Services In the Brooklyn Tabsss
nAclas

Wild Oats OF Youth Are Generally SoWn
in the Liver.
BROOKLYN, Nov. 20.-The Rev. T. De
Witt Talmage, d. D., opened the services
at the tabernacle this morning by giving
out the hymn beginning:
Should coming days be cold and dark, AE
We need not cease our singing; 81
That perfect rest nought can molest, aSs.t
Where golden harps are ringing
He then explained a passage in the
Gospel of st. Matthew, concerning the in
ferlor kind of salt that was cast out to
make walks Of, to be tredden under foot
of men. The subject of DR.. Talmage's
discourse was "The Gospel Of Health,
and his text from Proverbs vii, 23: "Tin q
dart strike through his liver" He said:
There is q fashion in sermonics. A
comparatively small part of the Bible is
called ON for texts. Most of the passages
of Scripture, when announced at the
opening of sermons, Immediately divide
themselves into old discussions that we
have heard from boyhood, and the effect
on us is sOporifc. The auditor guesses at
the start just what the preacher will say.
There are very important chapters and
verses that have never been preached
from. Much of my lifetime l am devoting
to unlocking these gold chests and blast
the heart, and preach about the heart, and
sing about the heart, but if you refer to
the physical organ that we call the heart,
it has not half so much to do with spiritual
health or disease, moral exaltation, or
spiritual depression, as the organ to the
consideration of which Solomon calls us
in the text when he describes sin pro-
crossing "till dart strike through his
liver"
Solomon's anatomical and physiological
discoveries were so very great that he was
nearly 5000 years ahead of the scientists
of his day. He, more than 1000 years be-
fore Christ, seemed to know about the
circulation of the blood, which Harvey
discovered l,619 years after Christ, for
when Solomon in EcclCsiastes, describing
the human body, speaks of the pitcher at
the fountain, he evidently means the three
canals leading from the heart that receive
the blood like pitchers. When he speaks
in Ecclesiastes of the silver cord of life,
he evidently means the spinal marrow,
about which in our day Doctors Mayo, and
Carpenter, and Dalton, and Flint, and
Brown Sequard have experimental. And
Solomon recorded in the Bible thousands
of years before scientists discovered it,
that in his time the spinal cord relaxed in
old age, producing the tremors of hand
and head: "Or the silver cord loSsed."
In the text he reveals the fact that he
had studied the largest gland of the human
system, the liver, not by the electric light
of the modern dissecting room, but by the
dim light of a comparatively dark age, and
yet had seen its important function in the
God built castle of the human body, its
selecting and secreting power, its curious
sells, its elongated, branching tubes, O
divine workmanship in central, and right,
and left lobe, and the hepatic artery
through which God conducts the crimson
tides. Oh, this vital organ is like the eye
of God in that it never sleeps. Solomon
knew of it and had noticed either in vivi-
section or post-mortem what awful attacks
sin and dissipation make upon it, until
with the fiat of Almighty God it bids the
body and soul separate, and the one it
commands to the grave, and the other it
sends to judgment. A javelin of retribu-
ton, not glancing off or making a slight
wound, but piercing it from side to side
"till the dart strike through the liver"
Galen and Hippocrates ascribe to the liver
the most of the worlds moral depression,
and the word melancholy means black
bile.
preach to you this morning the Gospel
of Health. In taking diagnosis of the
diseases of the soul you must also take the
diagnosis of the diseases of the body. AS
If 10 recognize this, one whole book of the
New Testament was written by physi-
clan. Luke was q doctor, and he diss
courses much of physical effects, and he
tells of the good Samaritan's medication
of the wounds by pouring in oil and wine,
and recognizes hunger as q hindrance to
hearing the Gospel, so that the 5000 were
fed; and records the sparse diet of the
prodigal away from home and the extin-
guished eyesight Of the beggar away from
home, and let's us know of the hemorrhage
of the wounds of the dying Christ and the
miraculous post-mortem resuscit alton.
And any estimate of the spiritual condi"
ton that does not include also an estimate
of the physical condition is incomplete.
When the door-keeper of Congress fell
dead from excessive Joy because Burgoyne
had surrendered at Saratoga, and Philip
the Fifth of Spain dropped dead at the
news of his countrys defeat in battle, and
Cardinal Wolsey expired as a result Of
Henry the Eighth's anathema, it was DEM
onstrated that the body and soul are
Siamese twins, and when you thrill the one
with JOY or sorrow you thrill the other.
We might as we'll recognize the fact that
there are two mighty fortresses in the hu-
man body, the heart and the liver; the
heart the fortress of all the Qraces, the
liver the fortress of all the furies. You
may have the head filed with all intellect
uslities, and the ear with all musical ape
precintion, and the mouth with all elo"
quence, and the hand with all industries.
and the heart with all generosties, and yet
"a dart strike through the liver"
First, let Christian people avoid tho mis-
take that they are all wrong with God be-
cause they suffer from depression of spirits.
Many o consecrated man has found his
spiritual sky befogged, and his hope of
Heaven blotted out, and himself plunged
chin deep in the Slough of Despond, and
he said: "My heart is not right with God,
and l think must have made mistake.
and instead of being a child of light am
child of darkness. No one can feel as
gloomy as feel and be Christian" And
he has gone to his minister for consolation,
and he has collected FlavePs books, and
Cecil's books, and Baxter's books, and
read and read and read, and prayed and
prayed and prayed, and wept and wept and
wept, and groaned and groaned and
groaned. My brother, your trouble is not
with the heart, it ts gastric disorder or a
rebellion of the liver. You need ply
is not sin that blots out your hope Of
Heaven, but bile. Il not only yellows
your eyeball, and furs your tongue, and
makes your head ache, but swoops upon
your soul in dejections and forebodings.
The devil is after you. He has failed to
despoil your character, and he does the
next best thing for him-he ruffies your
peace Of mind. When he says that you
are not o forgiven soul, when he says that
you are not right with God, when he says
that you will never get to Heaven, he lies.
You are Just as sure Of Heaven as though
you were there already. But Satan, find
ing that he cannot keep you out Of
the promised land of Canaan, has deter